lingghezhi.blogspot

If life was a journey, I guess some of us take the seven seas route

2009-09-11T11:40:00.005+08:00

Hello, and welcome back to the barely alive lingghezhi.blogspot.

Its not that the past six months or so hasn't been interesting.

It's been so full of weird unexplainable happenings, and largely related to revelations of humans and human nature as it truly is. The pathetic and self-centred nature of people. The at-times unbelievable utter inconceivable stupidity that some display. At the very least, I guess I've grown a rock hard shell of patience and refined the ability of turning away from things and people that seem to have no purpose in life beyond their hedonistic habits.

In between the tango lessons and heavy reading, I've seen quite a lot, considering I relegate myself to my room and laptop most of the time. And the things I've seen are not the kind of things fairy tales and bedtime stories are made of.

How does a once-upon-a-time extremely social guy turn into a hikikomori? Easy. Nauseation of the stupidity of people in general.

The only times I would come out of the room in the past 3 months or so would be to eat or have my almost-daily tea at a nearby dingy outlet. I would go, have my tea by myself in peace.

Showers

2009-03-13T22:41:00.002+08:00

The first rains in many months has come to manipal, at night. The same night I would come back home to see the message from her on msn.
I had missed her by 2 hours.

At least I know now that she's safe at home in Malaysia.

2009-03-06T14:05:00.006+08:00

Been a while, hasn't it? No prizes for guessing why though.

There are so many things that have happened, that it's almost shuddering to think about how much a few months can mean. To think that I've to spend so many more months more here before I can return.

There's only one thing on my mind over the last few days though. She's not here. She's left for Malaysia. The apartment is empty. And she is the only thing I've thought about since she left. She's the only thing I've been thinking about since I woke up on the morning the day after her flight.

It broke my heart to close the apartment door that one last time the day after she left. I turned back before I closed the door, and walked around. Everywhere I looked, memories will come back to me like in this Celine Dion song I used to love, which made it all the more difficult to leave that place we once called home.

As for my own new room, I've spent 4 days moving my stuff into my new room. FOUR whole freakin days to move a large amount of all manner of belongings which I would estimate to be in the range of >>100kgs in total. I'm not even in the mood to christen it as my new evil headquarters. I'm just gonna call it my new room. Maybe someday I'll think of a cooler name or something.

Moving in and rearranging all my stuff was tough. But the precious memorable things she left behind with me were even harder to place. Do I keep them locked up safely in the luggage, or do I keep them close to me around the room?

The stars there are still glowing every night,

and I'm still waiting everyday for some news. MSN. Skype. Email.

Anything.

I miss you.

2009-01-01T00:01:00.000+08:00

The new year.. Each year, always different. So many things change, and its rarely merely the digits.

Each new year, as I do every year, I look back all the previous new years I've ever recorded in this place, and dream at night of the ones I did not. And always try to learn the lessons many only see at the end of lives.

People make resolutions on this day.
I made a goal.

This year, New Year went by in a flash. I can't even remember how December 31 2008 started, but I knew how it ended. It was not the most perfect dream, but it is a memory all the same. And with every step, I guess we come closer to knowing each other a little better.

Having the heavens present the most splendid star studded sky only makes the moment resonate with memories and patterns of all the new years that came before it.

It makes sure I never forget the flow of life.

Happy New Year to all, and to all, a good night.

Windows XP Internet Speed Hack I

2008-12-22T01:12:00.001+08:00

Are you aware that a portion of your available bandwidth is always allotted to Microsoft Windows to perform updates or any other nefarious actions upon your system?

Well, time to reallot it back to you. You'll get about 0-20% increase in bandwidth, since you are merely taking priority from Windows, not blocking it from doing what it wants to do outright.

Open Run, and type gpedit.msc

Go to Local Computer Policy>Computer Configuration>Administrative Templates>Network>QOS Packet Scheduler>Limit Reservable Bandwidth

Enable reservable bandwidth, and set the value to something between 1 and 10%.

Oh yeah, did I mention, Linux doesn't try to connect to random servers like this behind your back. Come. Use Linux. Join the penguins. You know it's better.

Hacking Windows XP DNS cache for faster surfing

2008-12-08T18:35:00.008+08:00

I'm pretty sure few will know what DNS is all about, so I'll keep it simple.

Let's imagine you type in www.facebook.com in the address bar in Internet Explorer or Firefox. Your computer now needs to connect to Facebook's computers (servers) to get to your account. But www.facebook.com means absolutely nothing to the computer, and says nothing about where exactly to connect to.

And so, after you press Enter, your laptop asks a giant online address book called a DNS server, which will hold information on how to connect to Facebook's servers in the form of a series of numbers.

Using those numbers, your computer now connects to Facebook's servers, and the login page is loaded.

All this occurred in milliseconds (let's say, 100ms), so you probably wouldn't notice any delay. But www.facebook.com is not the only site you visit. You probably also visit www.friendster.com or www.hotmail.com. (Let's say around 50 sites each time you go online)

So, at each session, using this system, you will spend 50x100=5,000milliseconds referring to that giant online address book. And let's say you go online once daily on weekdays and twice daily on weekends. This means a total of 9 sessions x 5,000 milliseconds= 45,000 milliseconds per week.

In a year, that would mean 52x45,000=2,430,000milliseconds.
That's about 67.5 hours of time merely spent referring to the DNS servers.

And these values are just for the average casual server. We have not even begun to consider people like me who are capable of being actively online surfing and reading more than a hundred sites a day. Obviously, we need to find a way to minimize this waste of time.

There is something in both Windows and Linux that reduces this load, called the DNS cache, that temporarily stores the DNS information. Sort of like copying down notes from the giant address book. The problem is, the default DNS cache isn't very large, and in the case of some linux distributions, it does not seem to be permanent, being erased at system shut down.

So, how do you further reduce the time spent referring to the DNS servers?
By running your own little storage of DNS addresses. Think of it like copying the addresses off the giant online address book at the first time you refer to it, so that you don't have to keep referring to it for the same address each time.

Well, in Linux, it is solved easily enough via dnsmasq.
yum install dnsmasq (for RPM based systems)
or
apt-get install dnsmasq (for Debian systems)

For Fedora, dnsmasq seemed to run fine without changing anything, but I have not got around to making the cache permanent on my Fedora 10 machine rather than frying it each time I turn off my laptop.(*edit: dnsmasq is designed to lose the cache on shutdown. For a permanent cache that survives shut down, try pdnsd. I might, someday.) The service was disabled when I checked the services though. Fixed that, and it was all good.

For Debian systems, apparently there are some changes to make before it works:

1. Uncomment the following line in /etc/dnsmasq.conf :
listen-address=127.0.0.1

2. Add this to the /etc/dhcp3/dhclient.conf file:
prepend domain-name-servers 127.0.0.1; request subnet-mask, broadcast-address, time-offset, routers, domain-name, domain-name-servers, host-name, netbios-name-servers, netbios-scope;

Boom, you're done.

For the hardcore people, there's always the option of a dedicated proxy server to handle this. For the 90% of users out there, who are home users running Windows, neither is really a practical option, let alone a cost-effective one.

The solution for the regular user on Windows XP? Here:

Run regedit

Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Dnscache\Parameters

Right click, and choose: Create> New DWORD (32bit) Value

Modify (or create, if absent) the following DWORD [REG_DWORD] values :

CacheHashTableBucketSize 40 CacheHashTableSize 307 MaxCacheEntryTtlLimit 432000 MaxSOACacheEntryTtlLimit 90 NegativeCacheTime 0 NetFailureCacheTime 0 NegativeSOACacheTime 0

And you're done.

ALTERNATIVE:

If you are not really into digging in the registry, try this alternative for Windows XP:

Download this file, and run it, accepting anything it orders you to do.

I have no guarantees on that though.
(*edit: the script doesn't work,sadly. Do it manually via regedit as per above. )

At the end of all this, you now have a larger DNS cache, which over time, shall hopefully save many hours.

FREEZE

2008-11-10T18:58:00.005+08:00

I'm putting all my laptop/repair/security tasks on hold till after my university exams.

This basically means that lingghezhi's services will no longer be available, as of this Sunday, November 16, until February. It also means that if you have any issues you want me to resolve or any laptops that you want reformatted, they have to be delivered by Friday and collected on Sunday. After Sunday, if you show up or call me regarding reformatting your laptop or a latest virus infection that you can't fix, I might get irritated and screw you over. If you ask me on MSN I will block you. Needless to say, I unsafely assume every living being reads lingghezhi.blogspot and understands this.

If you are really desperate because you feel your laptop is committing suicide, try offering me coffee or paying me double. I might consider it, especially if you offer both. Otherwise, please leave me alone.

I'm sure there are others who have some rough knowledge about computers. I can't possible be the only tech-savvy person in this whole state. At the very worst, go try your luck with the local computer shops, and pray VERY hard if you do, because you might not get your laptop back. Go find them and give them your problems.

Lingghezhi is not in the house till February.

If you don't like it, send an email to /dev/null.

Editorial board

2008-11-02T01:04:00.002+08:00

I was buzzed early in the morning today, to help design a poster for the newly re-founded editorial board of MMMC. They were bringing the extinct yearbook back to life, and were recruiting members.

Here's the poster, in all it's glory of 60 minutes of editing.

Not too shabby if I do say so myself. Leave comments about what you think.

As for myself joining the editorial board, I think I'll keep those plans, if it still appeals to me then, for next year, after the university examinations. I've been in an editorial board before, and it involves a buttload of work, which most of us medical geeks lack the time for.

Back, with a large invertor for sale

2008-10-12T00:47:00.006+08:00

First off, before I forget, as most have noticed, this blog has not been updated much since my holiday ended. And the reason has not changed either. Med school is no walk in the park. Readers will still find golden whispers of tech knowledge once in awhile, but bear with it for another 6 months. My repair and security services are still active though, and still follow my usual terms of business.

And now, your regular article update.

******

From brownouts to all out blackouts, India never fails to deliver their incapacity. Since around 10am today till about 6pm, there was no electricity. You'd think it's not so bad, but as far as some of us are concerned, it just reflects the pathetic nature of a country full of idiots who can't even supply proper electricity. It's not like it has a very high count of people using high drain electronics or anything.

For those of you who moved out of the hostels and bought invertors, kudos for making the best damn decision ever (both, for moving out, and for getting the invertor. And yes, this post is directed towards fellow students in India.)

For those in the dark, an invertor is basically a small metal box, somewhat 2/3 the size of a desktop, that switches your AC electric supply to a battery whenever the power goes out (as it always seems to around here), as well as charges the battery when you do have power. Something like a giant UPS for your room/house. The invertor is connected to a large battery and to the mains.

Now why talk about invertors? Well, because I have one sitting under my bed, waiting for sale. Send me an email or a message or something if you're interested, before I start advertising to all my juniors. It's something you're going to need if you move out of the hostels.

Get a good invertor, and you could easily give your laptop a further 4 hours whenever there is a blackout. (6 hours, if you know how to do it.)

Dreaming

2008-09-29T22:49:00.002+08:00

I find myself staring at glow-in-the-dark stars more often than I should be.

And every time I see an umbrella with that shade of pink, the thought of running after it and tapping the shoulder crosses my mind, and within microseconds, reality bites that train of thought and reminds me.

She's still far away from me.

I miss her....

Google's Chrome browser, Google Desktop and what it means for some of us, and random crap about security

2008-09-04T20:30:00.004+08:00

It's out, all 475kb of it.

With Firefox 3 out, it seemed this was it. The coolest browser this year,and maybe for a few more months to come. Firefox 3 oozes goodness from all corners. Firefox 3 is my choice simply because it's open source, it's secure, and it's extensions make it even more secure. As far as I know, no other browser comes even close to providing that level of anonymity and security, especially after a couple of small changes. The bad side of it is that its size and memory usage makes it the mammoth of browsers.

Those who prefered lightweight, went with opera. Those who wanted to look like retards, went with Safari. Internet Explorer is hard to judge. IE7 is quite good, and if you've tried the IE8 beta, you would notice it's pretty cool as well, if you don't mind lack of web standards compliancy.

And all of a sudden, web giant Google throws something totally fresh out of their labs and onto the table.

Google chrome. The smallest graphical browser I've seen yet.
I'm not too concerned about the bluish looks of this browser, but really, 475kb is pretty small. Those who have fond memories of the old 1.44 diskettes will love these sort of programs.

How secure is it? Wikipedia says there's a bug. I say it's still in beta, so it is still excusable. I'll run my own little test drive once an official release client for linux is out.

How fast is it? Reviews say program startup is fast, surfing speed is about the same as opera or firefox.

So that is pretty much it for the world's latest addition to web browser options.

Chrome does mean something else though. If Chrome can become popular enough, the whole idea of the desktop and a homepage being the same thing that everyone seems to be raving about will become more commonplace.

I am not sure if that is such a good thing.

And the problem isn't about it being a web browser. This is where talking about Chrome ends, and Google Desktop comes in.

Google chrome becoming popular could mean google desktop becoming popular, not to mention anything else google introduces along the way to replace the current applications sitting on your hard disk and augment its place in your daily computing, much the same way using Microsoft Windows somehow managed to mind control everyone into using Internet Explorer.

I've never been a fan of web based apps. Never have. Never will be.

Keeping a layer between the net and your machine is very very good security-wise. If we start depending on webapps and online storage, every security concept based on that layer goes out the window. The emphasis shifts from just blocking people from getting into the machine to blocking people from tapping into your connection to the server. And if either side becomes compromised to a well placed trojan, it can become somebody's worst nightmare.

And no, things don't get better with encryption. That's just makes it harder, not impossible. As much as I wish ssh-ing across continents into a home server was secure, the fact is, it isn't bullet-proof (though it is the equivalent of kevlar in spirit.).

A fine difference between a false sense of security, and the knowledge of the absence of security. One makes people commit more mistakes.

This of course doesn't matter for all the dumb terminals and internet cafes in existence. Heck, it's probably a blessing. A client even lighter than Opera?! A dream come true. I myself am going to recommend it to anyone with laptops older than 5 years.

Chrome's presence does have another effect though. It's like the difference between telling a person to run, and telling the person to run after releasing a wild bear on him.

Competition.

Firefox has been having it easy. Left alone right now, it's growth is almost guaranteed. I don't foresee Internet Explorer displacing it in any way. Its association with and birth from Microsoft does not do it any favours. Opera has carved its niche. So have all the other browsers. Chrome can change that if support for extensions and ultra-beefed up security gets somehow built in. And that is going to make Mozilla run harder. Which works for the users because that is really what they are going to be interested in. What is the latest? What is the coolest? What is the prettiest? And especially for me, what is the most secure?

Yes, I'm all about security. Take a look at my part-time jobs in my profile and go figure.

I'm still waiting though. For the perfect browser, the kind with no security holes. Standards compliant. No memory issues. And the closest one right now is still Mozilla's Firefox 3.

lingghezhi has arrived

2008-08-27T11:06:00.002+08:00

Let's put a smile on that face

Singing doctors

2008-08-22T01:21:00.002+08:00

A friend of mine performed at a ball a couple of weeks back.
Here's the video. Enjoy.

Ps. Someone owes me advertising fees. *cough*ahem*cough

Buying list

2008-08-19T19:00:00.000+08:00

The following are items I'm interested in purchasing. If you are selling any of these items and alright with the price, leave a comment here/email me.
Prices on some items are negotiable.

Lingghezhi is looking for:

1. VERY cheap second hand laptop (no hardware damage)
(regardless of how ancient or its specifications. I have a specific use for it)
Offering price : RM500

2. second hand N90 Nokia phone (or greater)
Offering price : Unconfirmed.

3. Asus Eee pc
(No hardware damage. Scratches/Smudges are acceptable though.)
Offering price : Depending on the model

4. 2Gb DDR2 Notebook RAM chip
Offering price : RM100

5. External Hard disk
(No hardware damage. Any age or capacity)
Offering price : Depending on model

6. Laptop cooler
Offering price : RM20 and above, depending on how good it is.

Now thats cool

2008-08-16T03:42:00.000+08:00

Squeezing the juice

2008-08-14T20:36:00.001+08:00

Quick question: How long does your laptop battery last?

Let's assume a couple of things:
1. It's a Li-ion (lithium-ion battery)
2. It's been charged fully.
3. all you're doing is web browsing on Firefox
4. the battery is a regular 6-cell battery
5. the battery is brand-new

If all of the above conditions are met, the battery should be giving you about 4 hours of juice. But let's face it, some of you are probably getting only around 2 hours of usage. And that really sucks when you are on the go, or when the power cut lasts abominably longer than usual.

So how do you push your battery to that 4 hour mark?

1. Keep it cool. Operate the laptop in air-conditioned environment if possible.
The Lithium-ion battery degrades with higher temperature. The best conditions to keep it would be around 10 degrees Celcius. Anything lower than 0 will render it useless, anything above 40 and you're asking for trouble. A handy thing to remember is if you are running the laptop plugged in to AC all the times and the room isn't air-conditioned, it may be wise to remove the battery and keep it somewhere cool. (This may not be such a good thing to do in India where the power supply is shit though.)

Also, lithium-ion batteries degrade with time,as in from the moment it was manufactured. This is something you can't do anything about. It is helpful to know this when purchasing extra batteries.

2. Purchase an extra battery if you really really need it. You'll be happier.
Get a 9-cell battery.

Now comes the more techy parts

3. BEST TIP: Turn down your screen brightness. All the way down to minimum. Also, the smaller your screen, the longer your battery can go.

4. SECOND BEST TIP: Turn off/Disable your wireless and bluetooth. It's better if your laptop has an external switch to actually power off the network card. Otherwise, use Fn+apropriatekey.

5. Stop using your CD/DVD drive. It sucks. Power, I mean. And please do not try to burn a CD or DVD while on battery power. It just isn't going to work out well.

6. Disconnect all external peripherals if possible. Including USB mouse and any drives.

7. If your laptop comes with software to throttle down your power usage, PLEASE fucking USE IT. These programs slow down the processor, down to about 800MHz. Believe it or not, it saves power.

If your manufacturer did not provide such a program, it's actually a good thing. In windows, right-click on the desktop and click Properties. Go to the 2nd tab, and go down to the bottom there to tune your laptop's behaviour. I'd suggest turning off the monitor after 1 minute of idleness, especially if you are just waiting for a file transfer to complete. The rest are up to you.

8. Turn off ALL programs you are not using. Including antivirus/antispyware/firewall if you are not connected to the Internet and not introducing any external drives to the laptop.

9. Having more RAM helps by reducing the amount of read/writes to the hard disk. More the hard disk has to be accessed, more power is used. I'd say 1Gb is the sweet spot these days.

10. Having an Nvidia/ATI GPU means you're screwed. Extra power usage.

11. Having a UPS for a laptop is as good as having a secondary battery, especially when combined with the above changes. If you can drop the power drain low enough, the UPS can be squeezed for 1 hour's worth of juice.

LINUX BONUS

1. The above instructions apply.

2. Linux inherently saves more power on laptops, simply because of the lower drain on the system, in addition to superb processor throttling.

3. Log out of Gnome/KDE and use one of the 6 terminals. Command-line programs ftw.

4. Use Intel's Powertop, if you are using an Intel processor, to detect which program(s) is causing the most number of processor interrupts. These interrupts increase power usage. Powertop also makes some very useful suggestions to further decrease power usage.

MCI vs Manipal, a dirty little secret?

2008-08-12T20:22:00.001+08:00

Or so a little birdie told me. A couple of little birdies actually.

There's been a lot of activity and words passed over the recent Manipal (i.e. KMC) derecognition by the MCI, India's own little regulatory body.

Now don't ask how true this is, as even I cannot confirm this, but it would seem that the whole thing is nothing but MCI flexing their political muscle upon Manipal. Every year, MCI asks for some dough.*cough* bribe *cough*

And every year, Manipal ends up getting derecognised till they ante up. The cover story given to the press in previous years were related to not having a proper centralised canteen/mess, and not having a proper library (shocking, no?).

This year, the reason apparently given is the sharing of human resources between colleges in Manipal. There is some truth to this though. Lecturers here do lecture for more than 1 program. But I don't quite see how this could be a bad thing. If nothing else, the end result is better trained and more experienced lecturers. It certainly isn't enough to derecognise one of the world's best medical institutions.

Another little birdie mentioned, in a hushed tone, that the sum requested this year to overlook the 'insufficiency' runs along the tune of Rs 18 crores. I'm not sure how many zeroes there are in a crore (I've yet to recognise the unusual Indian numerical system as something universal.)

Probably 6 though.

Like I said, these are rumors. Take them with a little salt. The problem is that with the levels of corruption present in India, a government body asking for 18 million Rupees from a medical institution with insanely deep pockets isn't as far fetched as one wishes it should be.

More details when more birds start chirping.

While we wait, does anyone know how many zeroes there are in a crore?

Manipal just had its ass derecognised

2008-08-08T11:19:00.005+08:00

Before anything, here's the link:

The Star Online, Pall Over Manipal degrees

Friday August 8, 2008
Pall over Manipal degrees
By M. KRISHNAMOORTHY and SIMRIT KAUR

KUALA LUMPUR: The Medical Council of India (MCI), which regulates medical institutions in the country will no longer recognise degrees offered by India’s Manipal University.

MCI announced last week that it would no longer recognise Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBs) courses offered by Kasturba Medical Colleges in Manipal and Mangalore.

“There were several inadequacies in the college which would not allow students to benefit completely from the course,” Bernama quoted a senior MCI official as saying.

Manipal University Pro-Chancellor Dr H.S Ballal said although the MCI had derecognised the institution, the ultimate decision would depend on the Indian Health Ministry.

“We have written to the Health Ministry and they have sent a team to observe the university.

“We have also submitted a report and the matter is still pending, and hope to get a reply within two to three weeks,” he said.

Manipal is popular among Malaysian students. Students at the Melaka Manipal Medical College (MMMC) do three years of clinical training in Malaysia and two years of pre-clinical in India.

An official from the Malaysian Medical Council (MMC) said the decision by the MCI would result in the public thinking that the quality of Manipal’s medical degree had gone down.

The MMC governs the recognition of medical courses for Malaysia.

“Students in Malaysia might be affected as they are studying in a university that has been derecognised by its own council,” the spokesman said.

“The decision means that to a certain extent, the quality must have gone down,” the spokesman said, adding that recognition of doctors as well as medical programmes and institutions come under the purview of the MMC.

The spokesman added that the MMC would write to the MCI as well as the Manipal Academy of Higher Education to ask for a further explanation on the ruling.

MMMC dean Dr John Arokiasamy said MCI's decision would not affect its twinning programme.

Wow, at first glance that would have probably freaked all the MMMC students who read my blog.

What has just happened is something that may be as political in nature as it is illogical. A world class medical college getting blacklisted in it's own country?

It smells faintly of nonsense. But more than the MMMC students, the KMC students will probably shit bricks over this a couple of hours from now once word gets around.

Anyways, to cut to the chase, this has no effect on Malaysian students in KMC and MMMC, for now, so long as the Malaysian Medical Council doesn't blindly follow such indiscriminate deregulation.

Anyone with any thoughts on the matter?

Lingghezhi goes private

2008-08-03T21:51:00.004+08:00

I always did enjoy working on computers. Let's just say it goes back a long way, along a road full of memories. Memories with meanings far deeper than I care to share here.

As most of my readers and fellow college-mates know, I service laptops. A few even know I helped setup wireless networks here and there in this little University town. I am especially famous for bragging about linux whenever someone asks me about it. Countless tales have been told in ~~Charaka~~ The Lair of Kings of the wonders of it.

Laptops used to just end up in my room every other month or so, mostly because I used to camp at the library all day long back in my first year. The word of my then informal services and my great move-out into the Acharyan kingdom happened about the same time. Somehow, this has resulted in a very interesting experiment of how word-of-mouth advertising actually works. I do absolutely nothing. And people somehow magically know I can do their laptops. This worked greatly in my favour because of my interest in seeing how far a machine can be tweaked and optimised.

And then things got busy.

In short, I am the guy everyone here calls when their laptop fucks up.

And I did it all pro bono publico.

And who could resist the free service? Send in your laptop on Friday. Come collect on Monday, and you will have a laptop that behaves like it was bought yesterday.

And this went on, with some weekends where I slept in the same room with 4 other laptops.

One fine day, epiphany came in the form of an MSN conversation. And I decided that doing this for free is pretty detrimental to my studies. And more importantly, it was sucking up my time. Time that I could be spending with my angel.

So I wrote out a price list, had it reviewed by my friend, rewrote it a couple more times. And published it. And thus, lingghezhi's services were no longer as free as before. I priced everything below standard computer shop prices. But looking back on it, I think I charged too low.

Because if nothing else, I'd say business merely increased.

It wasn't exactly what I planned, and earning cash doing a hobby I enjoy is of course a good thing. But the fact remains, I'm a medical student. I don't have the time for this sort of thing. And so I increased the prices a little more. No change.

But now, I'm afraid things won't be the same. For a number of reasons, including those above.

And also, I'm now officially working privately. I cannot answer questions on this for professional reasons. Suffice to say that, this means I WILL have to reject some laptops if I'm busy. And my prices are now the same as corporate prices. Just know that.

lingghezhi
System Admin
signing off

Solar Eclipse

2008-08-02T20:00:00.002+08:00

On 1 August 2008, there was a solar eclipse. It occured sometime between 5.30pm and 5.45pm.

I found out about it at 4.30pm.

Naturally I was pretty excited. I always somehow miss these things.

But there was a problem. Even with my specially coated glasses, staring at the sun is a pretty dumb thing to do, even if 1/3 of it is being covered by a massive ball of rock.

And one thing led to another. I ended up designing and building a pin-hole camera out of a paper cup, a plastic bag and some scotch tape. The final product looked much cooler than you could possibly imagine, albeit questionable in its effectiveness. I read a long time ago about making one of these using a large long box. I think the length had some optical purpose to it, because upon testing my cup-camera later, the image of the sun I got on the plastic screen was pretty tiny. Not enough to view a partial solar eclipse in all its coolness.

We tried staring at it with the naked eye. The technique didn't last very long. Then we managed to get hold of some camera film, which I had thought was on the endangered inventions list.

After a bit of tweaking by Nickson and Vincent, our local Acharyan camera-phreaks, Wendy's camera yielded the following wonderful pictures.

The best README file ever

2008-08-01T18:08:00.002+08:00

From the README file of the linux Gnome-cups-manager:

Once upon a time there was a printer who lived in the woods. He was a lonely printer, because nobody knew how to configure him. He hoped and hoped for someone to play with.

One day, the wind passed by the printer’s cottage. “Whoosh,” said the wind. The printer became excited. Maybe the wind would be his friend!

“Will you be my friend?” the printer asked.

“Whoosh,” said the wind.

“What does that mean?” asked the printer.

“Whoosh,” said the wind, and with that it was gone.

The printer was confused. He spent the rest of the day thinking and jamming paper (for that is what little printers do when they are confused).

The next day a storm came. The rain came pouring down, darkening the morning sky and destroying the printer’s garden. The little printer was upset. “Why are you being so mean to me?” he asked.

“Pitter Patter, Pitter Patter,” said the rain.

“Will you be my friend?” the printer asked shyly.

“Pitter Patter, Pitter Patter,” said the rain, and then it left and the sun came out.

The printer was sad. He spent the rest of the day inside, sobbing and blinking lights cryptically (for that is what little printers do when they are sad).

Then one day, a little girl stumbled into the printer’s clearing in the woods. The printer looked at this curious sight. He didn’t know what to think.

The little girl looked up at him. “Will you be my friend?” she asked.

“Yes,” said the printer.

“What is your name?” asked the little girl.

“HP 4100TN”, replied the printer.

“My name is gnome-cups-manager” said the little girl.

The printer was happy. He spent the rest of the day playing games and printing documents, for that is what little printers do when they are happy.

Note: Gnome-cups-manager is a printer driver app for Linux.

Bombs going boom

2008-07-29T03:49:00.004+08:00

At first it was in Bangalore. And before anyone knew, it got a little nearer.

I received the following sms just a while ago, and I'm still wondering how likely Manipal is to be the next target.

"Apparently there was a bomb set up in Mangalore stadium and in an auto..News just received a few minutes ago.. Let people know not to travel around. Forward this."

There is news of a bomb hoax in Mangalore, but I doubt this is the same one.
Hmmm... let us find out tomorrow morning.

Oobleck, cornstarch wonder.

2008-07-28T05:28:00.001+08:00

Is it really cornstarch + subwoofer?

That is some freaky goo.

Abiraterone, the new prostate cancer drug

2008-07-22T22:41:00.003+08:00

I'll let the BBC News article explain the rest.

In brief, it saves lives by shutting down all testosterone production in the body to starve the cancer.

What are the chances this'll make it into Kahtzung's Pharmacology 11th edition?

Humidity, Electrical spikes...and Micro-blackouts?

2008-07-21T01:22:00.006+08:00

It's the monsoon season for many parts of the world right now, and Manipal, India is no exception.

The constant rain (which much to my surprise, delight and happiness, has lightened up much in the recent few days) increases the moisture in the air. This needs no explanation, especially for some of us who can actually see their walls change colours every time it rains. But one thing a lot of us may be forgetting is the dangers this season brings to our electronics.

In brief, the rainy season here in Manipal means:
-unexplained daily power cuts.
-ultra-high levels of humidity

And both are relatively destructive to your notebooks and desktops.

Why?

The power cuts are pretty random in nature, both in terms of duration and time of occurrence. But it's not the power going off or coming back on that is the problem. The problem, somewhat ironically, is if it happens too fast. As in those strange half-second power outages. For those running desktops, needless to say, your machine is either going to fry, or merely restart.

For those running notebooks however, there is another effect to consider because of the presence of the battery. The time delay for those brief moments of blackout measures in terms of milliseconds. Assuming the notebook is plugged in, there is a chance the notebook has not switched over to the battery power completely. Residual power from the grid slows this down. I call them micro-blackouts. They are not the same as spikes or surges, but equally destructive.

The overall effect of this is data corruption if the hard disk was writing something. Even more worrying would be my suspicion that this damages motherboards that are not equipped to handle the sort of moronic sub-standard electricity that the Karnataka Power Company provides. We pay oft-times outrageous amounts for our electric supply, yet every evening without fail, they turn the power off. EVERY FREAKIN' DAY.

Let's think about the humidity, which I'm afraid, short of turning your air-conditioning on all day and night in a claustrophobia-inducing space, you can do nothing about. The moisture gets in everywhere. In your closet. In the bedroom. And needless to say, inside your notebook/desktop.

And like before, that is not the bad part. It might even work well together with the notebook's fan and cooling system in some sort of pseudo-liquid-coolant system way. But the damage happens when you turn it off. The notebook does not stay warm forever.

Mr. Laptop, say hello to Ms.Condensation.

And then, little baby droplets form on the circuits. This is not going to do anything bad. Till you get unlucky one day that is. I don't even want to know whether it is possible for fungi to grow inside of notebooks. (If they can grow on plastic and water-proof paint...well...)

How does one protect notebooks from all this?

My personal recommendation is to get silica gel packets. Lots of it.
Stuff your notebook bag.

And if possible, get one of these:

(if you're buying one, get one for me too)
Waterproof laptop casings

As for the power instability, I would recommend using a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply Units). They are not too expensive, and afford generally good surge protection, as well as mitigate the effects of the above-described microblackouts. They are a must have for desktop users in India, and a very good thing to have for notebook users. The UPS power supply kicks in faster than the notebook's own battery, and the built-in surge protection and voltage stabilizer is priceless. It also serves as a backup power source for your laptop. I get about 1 hour worth of backup power from mine with the appropriate settings. (I'll tell you how someday. Couple of small tricks involved.)

And in case you get bored of paying extra to the shops here for a UPS, you can consider getting a second-hand UPS and replace its battery. Or you can call me for one. Yes, I sell UPS's now too. Click here. Damn, I'm so commercialised.

I'll also try to contact some suppliers for silica gel packets.

Anyway, good luck to everyone with this rainy season. Things just got a little more hazardous. May your laptops withstand the dangers that are to come.

More on the Karnataka Power Company:
(Not that it is going to be useful really. It's just fun to know you can irritate them back if you ever lost your sanity and wanted to.)

The power supply apparently comes more from diesel, hydro and wind power sources than from thermal sources. The power they are generating from thermal sources is slightly more towards coal than oil.

From the map of their hydro stations, I'm assuming we get our juice from either the Varahi power station or the Sharavathi Hydel project, or both, as well as from an indecent amount of coal.

KARNATAKA POWER CORPORATION LTD.
(A Government of Karnataka Enterprise)
Regd.Office:Shakti Bhavan,82,Race Course Road,
Bangalore-560 001.Karnataka.India.
Tel:080-22256568,22269930-37.
Fax:22252144.
E-mail:cccm@karnatakapower.com
Website:www.karnatakapower.com

Their net profit (2006-2007):
Rs322.32crores